“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1
God being our spiritual father is by no means an advanced theological concept, but for some reason reading this verse this morning hit me right in the chest.
What is the significance of God calling us His children? I never really had thought there was much- boy was I wrong.
Interestingly, God being our Father is perhaps the one characteristic of Himself that we as humans can relate to the best. Sometimes certain attributes of God can be hard to grasp as we just have nothing else to compare it to here on Earth; what other human relationship can we say will always display unconditional love, consistency, and sacrifice in the way that our relationship with God is characterized by? None. Which is why it can be challenging to really believe God is acts/feels this way toward us.
God “calling us His children” means:
* He claims us. He is not ashamed to be associated with us.
* He views our “acting up” (a.k.a. sinning) as part of our growth & shows patience towards our short-comings. He will not abandon or disown us for our short comings any quicker than a mother would disown her toddler.
* He is committed to us for our entire time on Earth & into eternity. He is willing to put up with the good, bad, & ugly for the long haul.
* He takes responsibility for us & knows it is His responsibility & delight to provide for us in every way.
What makes all of this that much more meaningful is that God didn’t get stuck with us not knowing what He was getting Himself into, He CHOSE to be our Father & call us His children. Isn’t that beautiful? Think of all of the other ways he could have kept our relationship with Him as- if it had only remained a Creator/Creation relationship or just a Lord/Subject relationship, there wouldn’t necessarily be any commitment, love, or patience. He willingly chose to enter into a lifelong commitment with us, knowing that there would be moments that we would come to Him with bruised knees, bloody noses, broken hearts, would choose to spend our affections in places and on people who would hurt us, & have to reapetedly come and pick us up out of the garbage when we want to hide ourselves from Him out of shame from our sin.
Truthfully, I sometimes have a difficult time remembering that God sees me as His child and not just as someone who owes Him my life & devotion and gets upset when I just can’t get it right. What a warped view that is- especially if put in the context of even a human parent/child relationship.
Oswald Chambers writes, “We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.”
I can only imagine how it would hurt me when I become a mother if after my child messed up I found out they truly felt unloved, feared that I would kick them out of the house or disown them, was ashamed to be called their mom, and regretted ever having them. It would make me wonder what sort of mother I had been to them in the past for them to think that I would react like that.
God is a GOOD Father & none of us has any reason from His track record with us to assume that He would exhibit any of those negative actions towards us & it breaks my heart to think of how many times I’ve drawn those conclusions about Him when I’ve messed up and that He knows how I’m thinking.
For those of us who don’t have positive earthly examples of parents to relate our heavenly example to, may explain why it can be challenging to believe God really will always be there for us or show unconditional love. The work of the enemy in family structures has surely left many believers with having only God as their example of what a parent/child relationship should be like. And what a great example it is!
I encourage everyone to take a moment and THANK God today for the good, amazing, faithful Father that He is & begin to live in the freedom & rest that comes from knowing YOU are HIS child.
